Bring out the best in your images! Adobe's Photoshop Elements 5.0 provides the tools you need for quick fixes and detailed enhancement. Take control as you discover the exciting features of this award-winning package designed for photo enthusiasts. Created for those with no image-editing experience, this class will take you from novice to accomplished user.

Adobe combines the power of its award-winning technology with the ease of use desired by users with quick results in mind. You'll experience the simplified process of editing images on your computer, correcting flaws, enhancing the final product, creating simple art projects, preparing images for e-mail and the Web, and organizing your images into categories, along with learning how to use the powerful tools that make this program so popular.

Photoshop Elements 5.0 gives you room to grow while providing dynamic results in the early stages of the learning curve. By providing more features and tools than are commonly found in similar programs, Elements 5.0 broadens the options available to amateurs in the field.

You'll experience the high-quality results of Elements without having to learn complex professional techniques. By concentrating on the basic tools and their powerful options, you'll find a world of opportunities at your disposal through simple steps.

If you haven't unlocked the mysteries of Photoshop Elements 5.0, leave your frustrations behind and enjoy a simplified introduction to the basics of this fascinating program. Practical exercises and surprising results will leave you with a great feeling of accomplishment.

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Syllabus:

All courses run for six weeks, with a two-week grace period at the end. Two lessons are released each week for the six-week duration of the course. You do not have to be present when the lesson is released, but you must complete each lesson within two weeks of its release.

A new section of each course starts on the second or third Wednesday of each month. If enrolling in a series of two or more courses, please be sure to space the start date for each course at least two months apart.

Week One

Wednesday - Lesson 01

Photoshop Elements is an excellent package for photographers to use for editing and enhancing digital images. In this first lesson, you'll find out how to download the images you'll use in this class, and you'll get a chance to start exploring Photoshop Elements as we take a tour of the main work area. You'll also find information on what's new in the 5.0 version in case you're upgrading from a previous version of Elements.

Friday - Lesson 02

In today's lesson, we'll discuss the many file formats that digital images can take, and how to use them to your best advantage with Photoshop. You'll learn how to save updated originals and copies of your images, and you'll practice using Quick Fix for fast results. You'll see how to crop and rotate images to get just the look you're after, and how to use the Straighten tool for one-step corrections.

Week Two

Wednesday - Lesson 03

Digital images come in all sizes! Today we'll discuss image resolution, pixels, and recommendations for resizing pictures with excellent results. You'll learn how to optimize your images for the best print or quick transmission with e-mail. You'll also see how the Crop tool, Options bars, and a 3:2 ratio can change the look of your photos.

Friday - Lesson 04

Photoshop Elements gives you lots of options for printing your documents, including adding temporary colorful borders. You'll learn about all of your print options in this lesson. We'll discuss printing images to just the size you want and how to save them for use on the Web with Photoshop Elements Save for Web feature. We'll also take our first peek at the Organizer as we practice printing multiple photos on a page.

Week Three

Wednesday - Lesson 05

Most photographers have plenty of images to work with, but in some instances, you'll want to create a new file as a foundation for your images. You'll learn how to do just that in this lesson. You'll also learn how to add color using the Gradient tool, and you'll browse the endless choices for customizing your colors and patterns. You'll then move a photo onto your background, and discover how to use the Layers feature in the process.

Friday - Lesson 06

Today we'll work with color adjustments. Photoshop Elements makes it easy to change your hue and saturation, so we'll start by practicing that. Later, you'll create black-and-white images from color images using Elements' Black and White Conversion feature. And you'll find out how to isolate an individual color and just replace that one color with another. Color Variations is another wonderful visual tool included in Photoshop Elements. Here's your chance to learn how to make some quick color changes!

Week Four

Wednesday - Lesson 07

Light is the essence of photography, but it isn't always cooperative. In this lesson, we'll discuss ways that you can enhance and even create better lighting after you've taken an image. You'll see how to use brightness and contrast to improve your images, as well as techniques for lightening shadows. You'll also have a chance to work with the histogram, Levels, and 5.0's new Color Curves, which are all excelled tools for correcting lighting and color tones. Through all this, you'll see how Elements keeps track of your changes and lets you go back through them if you want to make a change.

Friday - Lesson 08

We peeked into the Organizer in an earlier lesson. Today, we'll take a much closer look at this helpful organizational tool. In this lesson, you'll learn how it works to keep track of your images and we'll go over some strategies for using both Windows XP and Organizer for image management. You'll see how to sort your pictures, and how to tag and collect them for use in fun photo projects like scrapbook pages and greeting cards. You'll also learn how to use Element's Face Tagging feature to quickly locate photos of your favorite people.

Week Five

Wednesday - Lesson 09

Your creative projects may require including text with your photos. Photoshop Elements gives you numerous text tools and in this lesson, we'll explore those options as we add text to some sample images. You'll see how Photoshop Elements uses layers with text and how to master the Layers palette. We'll also begin our study of the powerful selection tools, starting with the color-based Magic Wand tool and the flexible Lasso tool. With these, you'll see the power of Feathering selections and copying selections within an image.

Friday - Lesson 10

Today you'll continue your study of the selection tools, learning how to create a silhouette image using the Magic Selection Brush tool. You'll also find out how to use any of the selection tools in a reverse mode for tricky selections. You'll practice using the Marquee tools to select perfect square and circles for use in framing and highlighting images, then you'll try Feathering your selections to see the difference it makes in creating soft, blended backgrounds. You'll also see how to use the Marquee tool to create borders and frames around your pictures.

Week Six

Wednesday - Lesson 11

As we complete our study of the selection tools, you'll work with the Selection Brush tool for detailed and exacting work when you need it most. You'll also learn some advanced techniques for using the selection tools together. We'll work extensively with the Add to selection option and you'll find out how to preview your work with Mask Mode. You'll have a chance to experiment with some of Photoshop Elements filters and color options, as well as the settings in the Magnetic Lasso tool. As a final addition to your knowledge in this area, you'll have a chance to explore and work with each item on the Select menu.

Friday - Lesson 12

By the time we get to our last lesson, you'll know how to put quite a few new tools to work, but there's still more to learn! Today we'll discuss the retouching and correcting tools, and you'll perfect your skills with the Red Eye tool, the Clone Stamp tool, and both of the powerful Healing Brush tools. We'll go over when to use each tool for the best results, and you'll watch the power of Photoshop Elements unfold as you use these tools in your final assignments.

This course includes a knowledgeable and caring instructor who will guide you through your lessons, facilitate discussions, and answer your questions. The instructor for this course will be Beverly Schulz.

Beverly Schulz is a freelance photographer and a graduate of the New York Institute of Photography's Professional Photographer's program. She teaches a number of classes in digital photography and has more than 25 years of classroom instruction experience. Her writing and photography have been published in a number of magazines. She has traveled extensively and participated in onsite photography workshops as well as independent photo quests. In addition to teaching and photographic work, she provides consulting services for digital photographers and clients.

Requirements:

Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 for Windows (software must be installed and fully operational before course begins), Microsoft Windows XP, Internet access, e-mail, the Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox Web browser, and the Adobe Flash and PDF plug-ins (two free and simple downloads you obtain at http://www.adobe.com/downloads by clicking Get Adobe Flash Player and Get Adobe Reader). Note: this course is not suitable for Mac users.

You should feel comfortable acquiring digital images, either with a digital camera, using images scanned onto CDs, or scanning film prints. We'll briefly review basic computer skills, but you should already be familiar with such actions as using a mouse, creating and accessing folders, and saving files.

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